About This Show

Colm Toibin’s latest novel House of Names tells the story of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, Orestes, Electra and Iphigenia but Toibin drew on contemporary proponents of extreme violence – the Boston marathon bomber, ISIS and a shocking ambush of Irish Protestants during the Troubles to reach his understanding of how to write about these Ancient Greek murderers. Aminatta Forna’s Happiness similarly draws on the brutal modern wars in Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Iraq to illuminate an African trauma psychiatrist’s evolving attitude to how his profession should understand – and treat – individuals traumatized by violence. Two of today’s outstanding lyrical writers of fiction discuss their approaches to writing about this extremely tough topic.